much obliged to you, Silas; and you sha’n’t refuse my thanks.’
“‘I am happy, at all events, Monica, in having won your good-will; we learn at last that in the affections only are our capacities for happiness; and how true is St. Paul’s preference of love — the principle that abideth! The affections, dear Monica, are eternal; and being so, celestial, divine, and consequently happy, deriving happiness, and bestowing it.’
“I was always impatient of his or anybody else’s metaphysics; but I controlled myself, and only said, with my customary impudence —
“‘Well, dear Silas, and when do you wish me to come?’
“‘The earlier the better,’ said he.
“‘Lady Mary and Ilbury will be leaving me on Tuesday morning. I can come to you in the afternoon, if you think Tuesday a good day.’
“‘Thank you, dear Monica. I shall be, I trust, enlightened by that day as to my enemies’ plans. It is a humiliating confession, Monica, but I am past feeling that. It is quite possible that an execution may be sent into this house to-morrow, and an end of all my schemes. It is not likely, however — hardly possible — before three weeks, my attorney tells me. I shall hear form him to-morrow morning, and then I shall ask you to name a very early day. If we are to have an unmolested fortnight certain, you shall hear, and name your own day.’
“Then he asked me who had accompanied me, and lamented ever so much his not being able to go down to receive them; and he offered luncheon, with a sort of Ravenswood smile, and a shrug, and I declined, telling him that we had but a few minutes, and that my companions were walking in the grounds near the house.
“I asked whether Maud was likely to return soon?
“‘Certainly not before five o’clock.’ He thought we should probably meet her on our way back to Elverston; but could not be certain, as she might have changed her plans.
“So then came — no more remaining to be said — a very affectionate parting. I believe all about his legal dangers was strictly true. How he could, unless that horrid woman had deceived him, with so serene a countenance tell me all those gross untruths about Maud, I can only admire.”
In the meantime, as I lay in my bed, Madame, gliding hither an thither, whispering sometimes, listening at others, I suddenly startled them both by saying —
“Whose carriage?”
“What carriage, dear?” inquired Quince, whose ears were not so sharp as mine.
Madame peeped from the window.
“’Tis the physician, Doctor Jolks. He is come to see your uncle, my dear,” said Madame.
“But I hear a feminine voice,” I said, sitting up.
“No, my dear; there is only the doctor,” said Madame. “He is come to your uncle. I tell you he is getting out of his carriage,” and she affected to watch the doctor’s descent.
“The carriage is driving away!” I cried.
“Yes, it is draiving away,” she echoed.
But I had sprung from my bed, and was looking over her shoulder, before she perceived me.
“It is Lady Knollys!” I screamed, seizing the window-frame to force it up, and, vainly struggling to open it, I cried —
“I’m here, Cousin Monica. For God’s sake, Cousin Monica — Cousin Monica!”
“You are mad, Meess — go back,” screamed Madame, exerting her superior strength to force me back.
But I saw deliverance and escape gliding away from my reach, and, strung to unnatural force by desperation, I pushed past her, and beat the window wildly with my hands, screaming —
“Save me — save me! Here, here, Monica, here! Cousin, cousin, oh! save me!”
Madame had seized my wrists, and a wild struggle was going on. A window-pane was broken, and I was shrieking to stop the carriage. The Frenchwoman looked black and haggard as a fury, as if she could have murdered me.
Nothing daunted — frantic — I screamed in my despair, seeing the carriage drive swiftly away — seeing Cousin Monica’s bonnet, as she sat chatting with her vis-à-vis.
“Oh, oh, oh!” I shrieked, in vain and prolonged agony, as Madame, exerting her strength and matching her fury against my despair, forced me back in spite of my wild struggles, and pushed me sitting on the bed, where she held me fast, glaring in my face, and chuckling and panting over me.
I think I felt something of the despair of a lost spirit.
I remember the face of poor Mary Quince — its horror, its wonder — as she stood gaping into my face, over Madame’s shoulder, and crying —
“What is it, Miss Maud? What is it, dear?” And turning fiercely on Madame, and striving to force her grasp from my wrists, “Are you hurting the child? Let her go — let her go.”
“I weel let her go. Wat old fool are you, Mary Queence! She is mad, I think. She ‘as lost hair head.”
“Oh, Mary, cry from the window. Stop the carriage!” I cried.
Mary looked out, but there was by this time, of course, nothing in sight.
“Why don’t a you stop the carriage?” sneered Madame. “Call a the coachman and the postilion. W’ere is the footman? Bah! elle a le cerveau mal timbré.”
“Oh, Mary, Mary, is it gone — is it gone? Is there nothing there?” cried I, rushing to the window; and turning to Madame, after a vain straining of my eyes, my face against the glass —
“Oh, cruel, cruel, wicked woman! why have you done this? What was it to you? Why do you persecute me? What good can you gain by my ruin?”
“Rueen! Par bleu! ma chère, you talk too fast. Did not a you see it, Mary Queence? It was the doctor’s carriage, and Mrs. Jolks, and that eempudent faylow, young Jolks, staring up to the window, and Mademoiselle she come in soche shocking déshabille to show herself knocking at the window. ‘Twould be very nice thing, Mary Queence, don’t you think?”
I was sitting now on the bedside, crying in mere despair. I did not care to dispute or to resist. Oh! why had rescue come so near, only to prove that it could not reach me? So I went on crying, with a clasping of my hands and turning up of my eyes, in incoherent prayer. I was not thinking of Madame, or of Mary Quince, or any other person, only babbling my anguish and despair helplessly in the ear of heaven.
“I did not think there was soche fool. Wat enfant gaté! My dear cheaile, wat a can you mean by soche strange language and conduct? Wat for should a you weesh to display yourself in the window in soche ‘orrible déshabille to the people in the doctor’s coach?”
“It was Cousin Knollys — Cousin Knollys. Oh, Cousin Knollys! You’re gone — you’re gone — you’re gone!”
“And if it was Lady Knollys’ coach, there was certainly a coachman and a footman; and whoever has the coach there was young gentlemen in it. If it was Lady Knollys’ carriage it would ‘av been worse than the doctor.”
“It is no matter — it is all over. Oh, Cousin Monica, your poor Maud — where is she to turn? Is there no help?”
That evening Madame visited me again, in one of her sedate and moral moods. She found me dejected and passive, as she had left me.
“I think, Maud, there is news; but I am not certain.”
I raised my head and looked at her wistfully.
“I think there is a letter of bad news from the attorney in London.”
“Oh!” I said, in a tone which I am sure implied the absolute indifference of dejection.
“But, my dear Maud, if ‘t be so, we shall go at once, you and me, to join Meess Millicent